Digest / Local News in Brief

Glendale Council OKs Purchase of 4 Buses

The Glendale City Council voted unanimously Tuesday to purchase four additional Beeline shuttle buses to provide more frequent service on existing routes and add a route in southern Glendale.

Public Works Director George A. Miller told the council that two of the requested vehicles will be added to the existing Beeline routes to decrease time between buses. The system now runs four shuttle buses during non-peak hours and six vehicles during rush hours, according to his report.

The two extra buses would reduce the waiting time from 15 minutes to 10 during non-peak hours and from 10 minutes to 7.5 during peak hours.

The additional service is needed to alleviate crowding caused by increased ridership, which has more than tripled since last year, from 11,271 passengers to 34,452, Miller said.

"The big increase in ridership is partly because we eliminated the 25-cent fare and partly because ridership has been increasing steadily since '85," he later said.

Miller also told the council that the other two shuttles will be used to expand the Beeline system with a new route to serve Glendale Memorial Hospital and the Amtrak station at 400 W. Cerritos Ave., which will eventually be a transportation center connecting the city with downtown Los Angeles.

The estimated cost of the four additional shuttle buses is $225,000 and will give the city a total of 11 Beeline vehicles, he said in his report.